Keeping Youth in School and Out of the Justice System: Promising Practices and Approaches

Excerpt:

The “school-to-prison pipeline,” a term that has garnered a great deal of attention in recent years, describes the direct link between exclusionary school discipline practices and students’ subsequent involvement in the juvenile justice system. Behaviors such as truancy and violating school rules are often part of normal adolescent development. However, due to the focus on zero-tolerance school policies first implemented in the 1980s, misbehavior historically handled by school staff are now often referred to law enforcement officers as delinquent offenses, causing unnecessary interactions between youth and the juvenile or criminal justice systems. This bulletin discusses the school-to-prison pipeline issue, focusing on school-based referrals to law enforcement, arrests in schools and their harmful consequences, and highlights promising practices and examples of local reform efforts designed to keep youth in school and out of the justice system.